


Barred Windows to the Soul

by FunnyLittleOwl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: It has to do with art, M/M, Mid-Season Finale, Sam finds a way to cope in prison, Season/Series 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 03:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9216824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunnyLittleOwl/pseuds/FunnyLittleOwl
Summary: Sam drew a pair of eyes on the prison cell's wall at the third day.





	

Sam drew a pair of eyes on the prison cell's wall at the third day.  

He would talk to them, but they never seemed eager to respond. Instead they were two silent, judging reminders of the mistakes that had ended up leading them all here to this dark, horrible place, where the eyes in front of him weren't deep green, but white chalk.

He was suddenly struck by reality again. It was easy to get lost in thoughts once you've been caged up for millennia, even if it all happened in a different life, in which there weren't eyes and there wasn't Sam, only fire, cold hands and a presence so hideous it could only have been in a different life, not his, not ever again.

In Sam's life, there were always eyes watching him, so he drew them again - this time with a kind expression, one that was meant to look after him, and they had eyebrows to follow. Then eyelids. Then eyelashes. Then he called them Dean, and slept for a whole night.

He woke up to the sound of chains wriggling somewhere in the distance. It could be the real Dean or a real convicted mass murderer, but he wriggled his in return. Vigorously. In sympathy. _Thank you for reminding me what sound feels like. It hurts. Silence is just numb. Let's do it again sometime._

The noise was never heard again. Sam knew somewhere deep inside the person was probably dead by now, and that's how he was convinced it wasn't Dean. He still felt the chain that tied him up to the other man, strong and unrelenting, stuck to their hearts like an experiment gone horribly wrong. Whenever one pushed, the other bled, and so they were connected together since before they were born and long after they were dead. And neither heaven nor hell could break them apart.

Sam finally stopped pushing a while ago. He wasn't sure if Dean noticed. Now, he just let himself be pulled in by the tide of crystal green waters, deeper and deeper, until they both drowned in each other. He thought he would be happier this way. He was. 

But still, it wasn't enough.

He wondered what Dean was doing, like he needed to wonder.

Dean would be counting the days, analytical, pragmatic, his wall full of straight powder lines, then turning into squares, then whatever geometric form he felt like counting with. His head would be spinning around with escape theories, contingency plans and worrying to death about Sam.

Sam smiled with that thought. His brother just wasn't used to confinement like he was.

That night, he painted the whole wall and then the floor with waves that sometimes looked just like Dean's embrace around his body, surrounding him with a strange warmth that should feel more like a memory, but was actually just a dream.

Sam knew Dean thought he was the one who loved more, who fought more, who was more codependent, who wouldn't ever let the other go. He let him think that because the truth was a lot scarier. 

_I love you more than you realize,_ he told the first pair of eyes he drew, the ones who judged him for his mistakes. They grew softer each day as they began to see Sam for what he really was in his meek, uncensored, famished state. He wanted to get a reaction out of them.

San wrote hurriedly around the room with chalk all the things Dean wasn't supposed to ever know.

_I did look for you while you were in Purgatory. I was looking to follow you into the abyss, but the bridge never ended and all I hit was a dog. The water never came._

_I meant it that second I said it. I would not have done the same. I realized I couldn't do it - couldn't let you leave me, Dean - a few seconds later. I was terrified of with how much coldness I could bring myself to hurt you. I wanted to hurt you even if you hated me. I love you more than you realize._

_I killed Bobby to save you. When you died and it was Tuesday again. It wasn't Bobby in the end but I wouldn't have cared regardless. I watched you die a hundred and three times. I was alone for six months after that. You still don't know what I've done to get you back. You never will._

After that, there were confessions in every hidden corner. Secrets, strange preferences, favorite foods, random dates and painful names that were written a lot like the letters in Jessica, Amelia, Bobby, John. _Mary._

_You came back too late to save us_ , he told that last one and left it at that.

He ate for the first time in weeks that day because that is what she would have answered.

She would have wanted better for him anyway.

He drew in simple pictures the story of their lives, like the caveman that he was becoming. The characters blurred into each other and would seem grotesque to anyone else looking but him. Sam thought they were magnificent.

Dean's eyes were smiling today and Sam thought he had never loved them more. He thought about scratching them off with his fingernails because they made him feel too much. He vomited his only meal on the floor next to his hobbies and favorite authors.

Sam wished he had a poetry book with him. He felt like reading something mindless to ease up the nausea. And the spinning. Or perhaps a book about astrophysics. A book about both would be a difficult one to get even on demand. He needed to know if there ever was such a love that encompassed and transcended entire galaxies - that felt more like a collision of black holes. All those names he wrote, those radiant revolving moons, were already devoured in their wake, in one way or another. _Will you too, once more?_

That night, he drew stars on the ceiling. When he woke up, their light had faded. Still burned, though, like the last song of a red giant. Of what once had been a supernova.

When the whole thing finally exploded, he was there to witness it and keep it company. It was the most intense thing he ever experienced.  _A dying star is beautiful nonetheless, but if you wish upon it..._ Sam mused, turning to his treasured eyes, who were glittering with awe. _Can you make it shine again?_

And just like that he finally felt ready, as he watched the living ghosts from the past dance all around him to a melody that had ended a million years ago and only now had finally reached us. He peeled off among the remaining stardust his final, most private layer. 

_I have been in love with you since I was thirteen years old._

He ended up admitting to a silent universe. 

_I wanted you, so I left._

He always thought the earth wold break around him and devour him if he ever dared confess.

_I still want you. I never stopped._

But the world didn't end.

_Don't you see it, Dean? I love you more than you realize._

It kept spinning and spinning and spinning.

_I keep repeating that, but you never listen._

_This, you shall never know._

Sam fell apart with the weight of the things he never said, but now were carved it white in a dirty prison cell. Where they belonged. Suddenly, the world turned black, as if God had turned off the light on the eighth day.

Sometime later, there was an astounding noise. No one knows to this day where it came from. A noise so loud and so pure it could only be celestial. Nothing like Sam could ever produce.

There was also a hand on his shoulder.

It was Castiel, standing tall in front of his shame.

Shame.

_Abomination_ , he had said. Funny that the wall right behind him proclaimed the same a considerable amount of times with a blurred and shaky calligraphy - that only now Sam seemed conscious about.

"Dean is on his way," he said softly, and it took Sam a while to comprehend the spoken words. 

"I don't want him to see this," Sam thought he might have pleaded. "Please."

"Why not?" Castiel cocked his head to the side in that way he had. "It's beautiful."

Sam looked around for the first time. Art was hardly how he would describe the show of horrors that was his twisted, pathetic mind. Only one thing redeemed him, though. They were staring right into his soul and seemed sad, as much as their stained texture would allow. They knew he was leaving.

"It's an abomination," Sam spit, refusing to stare back.

"Oh, Sam."

With a gesture of the angel's hand, it was all gone.

The walls were grey again.

_Wait! I'm not ready! I'm not ready to say goodbye!_

"Sammy!"

Dean burst through the door and his eyes were real. They looked at him with so much devotion and so much pain - Sam's drawings could never compare. Dean threw himself at the scrawny man like the chains were pulling too much, like it's been aching for too long. His hands worshiped his hair and his face and for a second Sam let himself think...  

"Sammy, we need to go. You gotta get up. Sam! Haven't they been feeding you anything? What have you been doing this whole time?"

Sam stared at the green eyes he loved but could not have. He thought about telling them the truth.

"I... made myself busy."

No. Not the real ones.

_Just the ones in my head._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this on my mind since the mid-season finale... and I still don't know what I think about that storyline. But, hey, at least that's how this fic was born.
> 
> Sorry for all the angst. It wasn't meant to be unrequited love, it's just poor Sammy's head going insane in solitude. You know they'll figure it out eventually.
> 
> Thank you for reading and I appreciate your feedback. See you next time.


End file.
